Valley Fire victims struggle with uncertainty over rebuilding

Daniel Laine pauses while working on his family's property in the aftermath of the Valley Fire.

Photo: Scott Strazzante, The Chronicle

ANDERSON SPRINGS, Lake County — Nearly every afternoon, Buck Summers plops down in a patio chair in his backyard to watch the creek run past.

His woodsy perch in this small mountain community about 100 miles north of San Francisco might just be paradise if it weren’t for the charred hills that surround him — and the uncertain future residents face here at ground zero of last year’s devastating Valley Fire.

“Sometimes when I’m sitting in my chair and looking at the water, I forget there’s no house behind me,” said Summers, 57, after driving from the nearby Lazy-S mobile home park where he’s been staying since his property burned.

“It’s nice up here,” he said, “and I want to move back up as soon as I can. We all do. But I don’t know when that’s going to happen.”

Six months after the third most destructive wildfire in California history rampaged through Lake County, hundreds of rural residents remain not only without a permanent place to live — bouncing anxiously between motels, trailers and even cars and tents — but also unclear when and if they’ll be allowed to return home to rebuild.

Above; A new house goes up in the after math of the Valley Fire in Cobb. Many in the Lake County area may not be able to rebuild until sewage and water systems are put in place.

Photo: Scott Strazzante, The Chronicle

Inadequate infrastructure

That’s because a handful of residential areas, many settled as mountain resorts decades ago before evolving into permanent enclaves, lack the water or sewers required for modern home construction.

Putting in the needed infrastructure now, so that new homes can take shape, is simply beyond the means of these places, some of which struggled long before the fire. State and federal assistance has so far come up short.

“Normally, you don’t have whole communities needing to rebuild like this,” said Jan Coppinger, the county’s compliance coordinator for special districts. “I don’t know where the money is going to come from. But we need to find a way to get this infrastructure in place if the county is ever going to recover from this fire.”

The wind-whipped inferno that began Sept. 12 on Cobb Mountain was one of the fastest and most violent that firefighters had seen. It tore across 76,000 acres of hillside, destroying more than 1,300 homes and killing four people. The cause remains under investigation.

Septic systems barred

In Anderson Springs, where two residents died and all but 19 of 200 homes were torched, more than half of the property owners can’t move forward and rebuild. Planning codes don’t allow them to use septic systems — for fear of sewage seeping into the creek — and the alternative of constructing a new sewer system would cost the community a prohibitive $7 million.

County officials recently halted replacement of fire-damaged streetlights here because they’re not sure when they’ll be needed.

“What the hell am I going to do?” said former resident Joe Hulbert, 54, who’s been staying in a FEMA trailer about a half-hour away in Clearlake, waiting for progress. “You’d think once they declare this area a disaster, the building regulations would no longer have clout.”

County officials say there’s no avoiding health and safety rules, and that they are working to secure outside funds so the areas can rebuild to code as soon as possible.

While tens of millions of dollars of disaster aid has flowed to Lake County since the fire, the bulk of it has gone to cleanup and housing — not infrastructure. A $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture is a recent exception, putting Anderson Springs a bit closer to getting a new sewer system.

Water system needed

Up the road in tiny Bonanza Springs, the water system needs $700,000 worth of fixes — the pipes don’t provide adequate pressure for sprinklers or fire hydrants — before 57 razed homes can be rebuilt.

In nearby Cobb, work on 131 burned properties served by the Starview water district is largely on hold until $1.7 million is raised for replacement of a burned distribution system and pump house.

Meanwhile, water officials in Pine Ridge Estates, a rural subdivision also in Cobb, are laying temporary lines to replace pipes destroyed in the government’s fire cleanup. But for nearly 150 property owners who may want to rebuild, tapping into the short-term system requires a costly pump and tank to boost water flow. Many don’t want to incur this trouble or expense, meaning they have to hold off on their home plans until the community comes up with $1.2 million for a permanent fix.

Left: Six month after the Valley Fire in Lake County, a burned-out vehicle remains on a lot on Humboldt Drive in Cobb.

Photo: Scott Strazzante, The Chronicle

For some, all the waiting has become too much.

“A lot of faces I haven’t seen in a while. I’m guessing they’re not around because of the fire,” said Bethany Mahnke, 18, who serves up pastries and beverages at Mountain High Coffee and Books in Cobb. “I’m hoping a lot of people come back to rebuild, and it will get busy again, but I don’t know.”

Some recover quickly

Six months along, the recovery in Lake County is not all bad news. Despite the construction hurdles in some places, other areas have made huge strides.

Highway 175, the two-lane road that connects the mountain communities blasted by the Valley Fire, has seen a constant hum of work crews removing blackened trees and clearing out the rubble of scorched homes. Just about all the burned buildings have been removed.

Daniel Laine tends to his garden near a tent that he first slept in after returning to his family’s property in Anderson Springs.

Photo: Scott Strazzante, The Chronicle

Cobb Mountain Elementary School is in full swing after a temporary closure, running shuttles across the county to make sure displaced students can still attend. Even a few homes are beginning to emerge on the hillsides, and one family on Summit Drive in Cobb was hoping to move into their new house this weekend.

“To be where we are in this time is pretty phenomenal,” said Rob Brown, a county supervisor who represents the Cobb Mountain area. “It’s been six months, but really that’s a short time. This was a major disaster.”

The Valley Fire followed two other big wildfires in the county last summer, also destroying homes. Brown acknowledged that it will be years before things look and feel the same.

The economics of Lake County don’t help. Unlike in the neighboring Wine Country communities to the south, household incomes here are low, jobs are sparse and the county government runs on a shoestring. Nearly a quarter of the county’s 64,000 residents are in poverty, according to census figures, among the highest rates in the state.

For Daniel Laine, 34, moving his family back to Anderson Springs, where they lost a mobile home, will be tough. The plot is big enough that, under the planning code, he can rebuild with a septic system, but the property wasn’t insured — and he doesn’t have the money.

His mom, brother and 91-year-old grandmother, who lived at the site, are staying in temporary housing at Konocti Harbor next to Clear Lake, a 40-minute drive. Laine, however, has remained on his land, recently in a pop-up camp trailer donated by the Lions Club and before that a tent.

“I was a Boy Scout,” he said as he tended a makeshift flower garden outside his tent, where he stores his bike and household items. “I have it all rigged up with a rope to make a strong cage so it lasts through the wind, which we’ve had a lot of without the trees here anymore.”

Down the road, Summers is also determined to make the best of a difficult situation.

“Some people think it looks ugly here with all that black and gray,” he said. “But it’s looking better and better.”

Summers pointed to a green fern poking out of the blistered hillside and an oak seedling in the creekbed.

“I have my backyard,” he said, nodding toward the red fir stump and American flag next to his chair. “But I guess I’d like to walk back into my house at some point.”

Kurtis Alexander is a general assignment reporter for The San Francisco Chronicle, frequently writing about water, wildfire, climate and the American West. His recent work has focused on the impacts of drought, the widening rural-urban divide and state and federal environmental policy.

Before joining the Chronicle, Alexander worked as a freelance writer and as a staff reporter for several media organizations, including The Fresno Bee and Bay Area News Group, writing about government, politics and the environment.